First Symposium, Directors Report

We were delighted to have more than 90 registrants for the first Solar Chemicals Symposium in January. The event was held over two days at Liverpool, close to the University campus. An important part of the meeting was to introduce the community to the approach and themes of the network (biocatalysis, electrocatalysis, light harvesting and device engineering & carbon capture). I am particularly grateful to our theme leads who gave excellent overviews of the topics and led the discussions around the opportunities within the scope of Solar to Chemicals.

Across the two days there was a wide range of invited and contributed talks covering all aspects of Solar Chemistry and it was inspiring to see the diversity and depth of scientific research that is occurring in the UK at the moment. A particular highlight was the poster session and special mention goes to Romain Tort of Imperial College London for winning the poster prize for his presentation titled “Searching for the Rules of Nitrogen Reduction”.

I hope all those who attended found it as exciting as I did and also enjoyed the positive and collaborative atmosphere that everyone generated. Scientific debate and discussion are critical in maintaining a healthy, functioning research field and throughout the meeting the questions and answer sessions were a real highlight with thoughtful contributions from all involved.

We are already looking forward to our next event which will be a Biohybrids Workshop hosted by Professor Julea Butt and Dr Jenny Zhang at the University of East Anglia on the 4th July - save the date!

You say goodbye and I say hello.... the Solar Chemicals Network Launches

Summer 2023 marks the launch of the new UKRI-EPSRC funded Solar Chemicals Network. the new network represents a large increase in scope from the previous EPSRC funded Solar Fuels network, recognising that the community has moved beyond the previous tight focus on the production of simple fuels, primarily Hydrogen using sunlight, to explore a diverse range of solar chemicals.

The Solar Chemicals Network team is lead by Professor Alex Cowan (University of Liverpool) and Dr Jenny Zhang (Cambridge University) who are working alongside expert theme leads who bring the specalist knowledge required to realise the potential of using light to drive the produciton of chemicals. Learn more about our theme leads on the "about our network tab"!

Professor Alex Cowan said "The theme leads will be instrumental in our efforts to draw a wider community into the field who can bring fresh ideas and approaches. We have an exciting series of workshops, symposia and events planned alongside projects to raise awareness with the public and policy makers about this exciting field- watch this space!"